UN Envoy Welcomes Burma Timetable

(Mr Gambari left, has visited Burma twice since the September protests)
Beijing, China: Feb. 19th. (BBC News) - The UN's special envoy for Burma says the nation's plan for a constitutional referendum and multi-party elections is a "significant step". Ibrahim Gambari said this was the first time the Burmese government had set out a timetable for political reform. It marked the first "established timeframe for the implementation of (Burma's) political roadmap", he said. But the UN envoy said the referendum had to be credible and include genuine political participation. Last week, Burma's military leaders announced that a referendum on a new constitution would be held in May, followed by national elections in 2010. The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was not involved in drafting the constitution, and analysts believe it is likely to bar the party's detained leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from standing.

Mr Gambari is in Beijing to enlist Chinese help in persuading Burma to establish a more democratic and open political system. He spoke to journalists following what he described as "open and constructive" talks with Chinese officials. During the press conference, Mr Gambari was careful not to suggest China had more influence over Burma than any other country. But afterwards he admitted China and India were the countries with the most leverage. Mr Gambari will next visit Indonesia, Singapore and Japan as part of his efforts to push forward reform in Burma. He was last in Burma in November last year, but said he hoped to return before April. "The authorities had said they would receive me after the middle of April, but we have reason to believe they are reconsidering," he said. Although the envoy said he was not frustrated by the apparent lack of progress, he added that there needed to be tangible results. These included lifting restrictions on Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, and establishing a more inclusive political system. The UN envoy has been working on a political settlement since Burmese troops used force to end anti-government protests in September last year.
By Michael Bristow
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Myanmar Stepping up Arrests, Human Rights Group says

SOLO, Indonesia, Jan. 27th. (Int. Herald tribune) - Four months after a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, the government of Myanmar has stepped up arrests of dissenters, breaking a promise to the United Nations, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. "Rather than stop its unlawful arrests, the Myanmar government has actually accelerated them," the group, based in London, said in a report Friday. It said the junta had arrested 96 people since November, when it assured a UN envoy that it would bring the detentions to a halt. Instead of bowing to demands for moderation from around the world, the group said, "the government's chief priority is to silence its citizens who would hold them to account."

The demonstrations, touched off in August by a sudden rise in fuel prices, swelled to mass pro-democracy street protests led by monks before the military cracked down in late September. The government has acknowledged the deaths of a dozen people. The United Nations says that it has confirmed at least 31 deaths and that 74 people remain missing. In another show of defiance, the country's military junta has also postponed an invitation to the special UN envoy to whom it made the promise in November to end the arrests. The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, was appointed to represent the demands of members of the United Nations, who had expressed outrage at the televised scenes of violence against the demonstrators. Gambari has visited twice and was promised a third visit soon, as part of what Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma, said was a policy of cooperation with the United Nations. But the junta now says it will not be convenient for him to come until April. "This is business as usual for them," said U Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, an exile magazine published in Thailand. "When they are under siege, they always create such a smoke screen to keep away international pressure," he said. "They postpone, they say they are restoring normalcy, they keep arresting people."

As the months have passed, the world's attention has moved elsewhere, talk of sanctions has faded and diplomats and exile groups say the junta has tightened its grip on its citizens. "People should realize they are being fooled," Aung Zaw said. The UN Security Council criticized Myanmar in mid-January for delaying the release of political prisoners and moving slowly on a promised dialogue with the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years. Responding to earlier demands from the United Nations, the junta appointed a middle-level official to be its liaison with her. He is reported to have met with her only four times, and there has been no public word of any substantive result.

Amnesty International said 1,850 political prisoners were being held, including at least 700 people arrested during and after the protests. The group said more than 80 people were unaccounted for "and are likely the victims of enforced disappearance." It said at least 15 of the detained protesters and their supporters had been sentenced to prison terms since Gambari's last visit. In December, the junta asserted that only 80 prisoners remained of 3,000 people who were rounded up during and after the crackdown. One of the most recent arrests was of a prominent poet, U Saw Wai, who published a Valentine's Day poem in a weekly magazine that carried a hidden message about the leader of the junta. The first letters of its lines spelled out "Senior General Than Shwe is power-crazy."
by Seth Mydans
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Monk's Words Stir the Spirit of Myanmar's Resistance

SAGAING, Myanmar, Jan 14th. Los Angeles Times -- In one of his most talked-about lectures, Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanissara tells the legend of a king who ruled more than 2,500 years ago. The king believed that spitting on a hermit brought him good fortune. At first, it worked like a charm, but before long his realm was annihilated under a rain of fire, spears and knives. Today's audiences easily find the hidden message: The assault by Myanmar's military government on monks leading protests last fall looks like a modern version of the ancient monarch's abuse. And they hope the ruling generals will suffer the same fate. In the recent crackdown, many monks were beaten and defrocked in prison. Human rights activists say several monks were among the 31 people the United Nations says were killed by the government.

It was a traumatic wound to a mainly Buddhist society, one that forced a lot of soul searching among people who practice one of the oldest forms of the religion, which emphasizes critical thought and reasoning over blind faith. The stern-faced Nyanissara, a 70-year-old monk in owlish glasses and a maroon robe, is able to stare down generals with chests full of medals by stepping carefully through the minefield that makes free speech lethal here. Shielding himself with allegory, he crisscrosses the country giving lectures that draw on history and legend to remind people that rotten regimes have fallen before. As the generals try to crush the last remnants of resistance, he is cautiously keeping the fire alive. But he knows it isn't the first time in 45 years of military rule that the government has attacked monks who challenged its absolute authority. In at least four previous crackdowns, dating back to 1965, the military rounded up thousands of monks, killing some, defrocking others, while closing monasteries and seizing property.

Each time, the brutal repression outraged many people, but in the end they felt powerless to do anything about it, the crises passed, and the generals continued to oppress with an iron fist. It's the nature of any government's leaders to "strongly test their political power. They don't want to lose it," he said in a recent interview at the International Buddhist Academy, which he founded in this riverside town whose forested hills the faithful believe Buddha walked on his path to enlightenment. "But in any faith, when politics and religion come into competition, religious leaders always defeat anything. Religion is the leader. Jesus Christ was killed, but which was more powerful? Religion or politics?" The institute sits in a valley beneath the Sagaing Hills, where hundreds of golden spires, called stupas, rise like spiritual beacons from monasteries and pagodas that dot the hillsides, 12 miles southwest of Mandalay.

The first monks to demonstrate against the government last year took to the streets in Pakokku, 60 miles southwest of Sagaing. Still trapped in the latest cycle of political turmoil, many of Myanmar's people are looking to Nyanissara for more than spiritual guidance. At midday recently, he had just returned from addressing hundreds of the faithful in a village pagoda and was hurrying to leave for an afternoon lecture, a daily routine that keeps him constantly on the move to meet the demand for his wisdom. Barefoot in a corridor of the university where student monks and nuns are trained for missionary work, the monk ran a disposable razor over his tonsured head and down across his face and neck, removing the faintest midday stubble as he spoke. Then, flanked by young aides and walking as straight and sure-footed as a man half his age, the monk got into his black sport utility vehicle, which sped on a 110-mile journey to his next stop.

Nyanissara draws large, rapt audiences wherever he goes, whether they are poor villagers crowded into small monasteries or city residents sitting in orderly rows on a side street. On a recent night, a few thousand people filled a street in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, sitting quietly as they waited for the monk to arrive. When he emerged from his SUV, people bowed their heads to the ground as he made his way to a stage, where he sat cross-legged on a gilded chair as big as a throne.In large public gatherings such as these, when the generals' spies lurk in the audience and listen for any hint of trouble, his lectures are often built around the same lesson: Cruel rulers create bad karma. And they will suffer for what they have done. That's a moral not easily shrugged off by a government whose leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is intensely superstitious: He consults astrologers to make important decisions. The ruling generals also churn out propaganda images portraying themselves as devoted Buddhists, receiving the blessing of sympathetic monks. If their faith is true, they know their actions will determine their next life in reincarnation's endless cycle of death and rebirth. "They have to be afraid they'll be coming back as cockroaches," wisecracked one Western envoy.

Several of Nyanissara's lectures have been burned onto DVDs, with titles such as "Last Days of Empire." The generals have arrested people caught selling them, but they are still widely available across Myanmar, also known as Burma. "The DVDs are very popular," the Western diplomat said. "A lot of people have mentioned watching them, or knowing of them." To most people here, the pain of seeing monks beaten up in the streets is more than just an insult to religious faith. To many, it's as if the military had harmed their own family, and the anger does not ease quickly. Almost any Buddhist with a son has watched with pride as his head is shaved to make him a novice monk in an initiation ceremony called shin-pyu, a moment as life-defining as a baptism, christening or bar mitzvah. It is a religious duty for Buddhist boys to become novice monks from age 7, and most in Myanmar answer the calling, Nyanissara said.

Just as Buddha left his own family to seek enlightenment, they live in a monastery for a few weeks, during which they are allowed to have only eight possessions: a robe, a belt, footwear, a razor, an umbrella, a glass for water, a begging bowl and a filter to make sure no living thing slips into their food to be eaten. "They learn morality and how to pay respect to their elders, and Buddhist monks too," said U Kondala, abbot of a monastery with a library of 16th century copies of Buddha's laws and philosophy, handwritten on palm fronds folded like Chinese fans. "After understanding the ways of the Buddha, they are more polite and clever, and consider the welfare of other people." Novices return to normal life with a profound respect for monks who were their teachers. When thousands joined protest marches last fall, their chants gave comfort to people who had known them since childhood. "All of the monks who came out of the monasteries into the streets only recited verses from the teachings of the Buddha," Kondala said. "The people are suffering, they are getting poorer and poorer, so the monks wanted to protect them against any danger." Nyanissara said the region surrounding Sagaing is now home to one out of every 10 of Myanmar's 400,000 monks, robed legions that listen carefully to his lectures to see the right path ahead. "It's a very big army," the monk said, and he laughed a little. But he wasn't smiling.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

U.N. Council Deplores Crushing of Myanmar Protests

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 11 (Reuters) - China joined Western powers for the first time to deplore Myanmar's crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations and call for political dialogue there in a statement by the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. The hard-fought statement urged the military junta that has ruled Myanmar for 45 years to free all political prisoners and detained protesters soon and prepare for a "genuine dialogue" with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The official policy statement is not legally binding, but because -- unlike a resolution -- it required the consent of all 15 council members, it left the Myanmar government isolated, Western diplomats said.

It was the first time the council had taken official action on Myanmar and marked a shift of position by China, a neighbor and key trading partner of Myanmar that had previously used its veto to prevent criticism of the country's authorities. The United Nations said special envoy Ibrahim Gambari would leave over the weekend for an Asian tour expected to culminate in his second visit to Myanmar since the junta cracked down on the demonstrations led by Buddhist monks last month. Myanmar authorities admit 10 people were killed, but Western governments say the toll is likely much higher. In an interview on Thursday on PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations would continue to use its "moral voice" to pursue change in Myanmar. "We have been mobilizing all possible political influences of leaders in the region and in the world," he said. "The Security Council strongly deplores the use of violence against peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar," said the statement read by council president Leslie Kojo Christian of Ghana after the West and China haggled for six days over the text. The council "emphasizes the importance of the early release of all political prisoners and remaining detainees," it added. "The Security Council stresses the need for the government of Myanmar to create the necessary conditions for a genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all concerned parties and ethnic groups, in order to achieve an inclusive national reconciliation." "I think it is significant ... because it makes absolutely clear that the government of Burma is isolated from all world opinion in its actions of recent weeks," said Britain's U.N. ambassador, John Sawers, using Myanmar's former name.

The United States, Britain and France, who initiated the statement, said the junta must act soon or they would pressure the council to return to the issue. "The regime's commitments to work with the U.N. and Mr. Gambari must be followed by action," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said if nothing happened, "we will be back" in the council, possibly in two weeks. "We will not relent. We will persist," Khalilzad told journalists. France's deputy U.N. ambassador, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said all restrictions imposed on Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, had to be lifted.

China's deputy U.N. ambassador, Liu Zhenmin, limited his comments to hoping the statement would help Gambari's visit and did not respond to questions on further council action. He said it was up to Myanmar's government and people "to resolve this issue." Gambari will hold talks in Thailand on Monday, then visit Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Japan "with a view to returning to Myanmar shortly thereafter," a U.N. statement said. Gambari, who returned from a four-day visit to Myanmar last week, originally planned a second trip in mid-November. Western diplomats said they hoped he would be in Myanmar before the end of October to push for implementation of the statement's demands. The statement was substantially rewritten several times and its final version dropped demands for a full accounting of what happened to the demonstrators as well as direct calls for a transition to democracy in Myanmar. Khalilzad said if he had had his way, the statement would have been stronger, "but you have to bring 15 countries together with different views and different interests." Rights groups gave it a cautious welcome. "This is a first step when what Burma needs is a concrete measure," said Aung Din, director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. "We hope the council follows this move by implementing an arms embargo."
By Patrick Worsnip

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Myanmar Junta Names Liaison to Aung San Suu Kyi

BANGKOK Oct 8th: The military junta in Myanmar has named its deputy labor minister to act as a liaison with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the government announced Monday. It said Deputy Labor Minister Aung Kyi, a retired general, would act as "liaison minister" but did not elaborate on what this liaison would involve. State television said the appointment followed a recommendation by a United Nations envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, during a visit to Myanmar last week.

Analysts have voiced concern that the junta would take cosmetic steps to try to deflect international concern over its violent suppression of huge pro-democracy protests. An unknown number of Burmese were killed during the peaceful uprising and hundreds were arrested. Since the demonstrations were crushed late last month, the government has been carrying out night-time searches and arrests, and state media said Monday that arrests were continuing. In an earlier concession to international demands, the junta's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, said last week that he would meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, but only if she renounced some of her demands, including her support for international sanctions against the regime.

It remained unclear whether the junta would open any real dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years. A commentary Monday in the government's English-language mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, indicated that the government was not planning to release her from house arrest anytime soon, despite widespread demands from abroad. "The three demands of the protesters - lowering consumer prices, release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, and national reconciliation - cannot be satisfied through protest," the paper said, using an honorific it has avoided in commentaries over the years. "Now, those responsible are making arrangements to draft the state constitution and collect the list of voters," it added. "When the state constitution is approved, the fulfillment of the three demands will be within reach." "The drafting of a new constitution is one of the steps on a "road map" that the junta says will lead to a form of "disciplined democracy," but the constitutional guidelines it adopted in August assured that the military would play the dominant role in any future government. The completion of a constitution and its approval in a referendum could still take many months or years, analysts said.
International Herald Tribune
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise. Mozlink

Myanmar Junta's Secretive Supremo

Five facts about the Burmese military junta's most powerful figure, Than Shwe:

Born in British-controlled central Burma in February 1933. Than Shwe joined the army in 1953 and rose through the ranks to become military supremo with the official title "Senior General" in 1992.

On taking power, he said the junta that seized power in a 1962 coup would "not hold onto power for long," sparking hopes of civilian government. Since then, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of her time either in prison or under house arrest.

Than Shwe is rarely seen in public or out of uniform. One notable exception was his appearance at a secretly leaked video of his daughter's wedding in 2006. The ceremony's lavishness sparked outrage among Burma's 53 million people, among the poorest in Asia.

He is known to have an intense personal dislike of Suu Kyi and is alleged to have walked out of a meeting with a foreign envoy when her name was mentioned.

Rumours about his failing health and imminent demise are common.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Myanmar Officials Threaten Clerics

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) Sept. 24th. — Myanmar's religious affairs minister warns the Buddhist clergy to restrain demonstrating monks, or else the government will act against protesting clerics. As many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched Monday through Yangon, the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar's biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the military. From the front of the march, witnesses could see a 11/2 -kilometre stretch of eight-lane road was filled with people. Some participants said there were several hundred thousand marchers in their ranks, but an international aid agency official with employees monitoring the crowd estimated said the size was well over 50,000 and approaching 100,000.

It was the latest in a series of protests that began Aug. 19 as a movement against economic hardship in the Southeast Asian country after the government sharply raised fuel prices. But arrests and intimidation kept demonstrations small and scattered until the monks entered the fray. The usually iron-fisted junta has so far kept minimal security at the protests, and diplomats and analysts said Myanmar's military rulers were showing the unexpected restraint because of pressure from the country's key trading partner and diplomatic ally, China. The march kicked off, like the previous ones, at the Shwedagon pagoda, a historical centre for political movements as well as the country's most sacred religious shrine. Some 20,000 monks took the lead, with onlookers joining in on what had been billed as a day of general protest.

In the central city of Mandalay, meanwhile, 500 to 600 monks set off shortly after noon on their own protest march. The monks, who took over a faltering protest movement from political activists, already had managed to bring people into the streets in numbers not seen since the 1988 pro-democracy uprising snuffed out by the army at a cost of thousands of lives. On Sunday, about 20,000 people including thousands of monks filled the streets in Yangon, stepping up their confrontation with authorities by chanting support for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The increasingly confrontational tone of the anti-government protesters has raised both expectations of possible political change and fear that the military might forcefully stamp out the demonstrations, as it did in 1988. A Southeast Asian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity as a matter of protocol, said the regime is under pressure from China to avoid a crackdown just as its larger neighbour has pressured it to speed up other democratic changes. "The Myanmar government is tolerating the protesters and not taking any action against the monks because of pressure from China," the diplomat told the Associated Press. "Beijing is to host the next summer's Olympic Games. Everyone knows that China is the major supporter of the junta so if government takes any action it will affect the image of China." China, which is counting on Myanmar's vast oil and gas reserves to help fuel its booming economy, earlier this year blocked a UN Security Council criticizing Myanmar's rights record saying it was not the right forum. But at the same time, it has employed quiet diplomacy and subtle public pressure on the regime, urging it to move toward inclusive democracy and speed up the process of dialogue and reform.

Josef Silverstein, a political scientist and author of several books on Myanmar, said it would not be in China's interest to have civil unrest in Myanmar, also known as Burma. "China is very eager to have a peaceful Burma in order to complete roads and railroads, to develop mines and finish assimilating the country under its economic control," Mr. Silverstein said. The movement seemed to gain momentum Saturday, when more than 500 monks and sympathizers went past barricades to walk to the house where Suu Kyi is under house arrest. She greeted them from her gate in her first public appearance in more than four years. But access to her home was barred Sunday. The meeting symbolically linked the current protests to Nobel laureate's Suu Kyi's struggle for democracy, which has seen her detained for about 12 of the last 18 years.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink